Time and Change

One balmy night, of beauty and of joy, A bright-eyed maiden and a dark-hair'd boy Stood by a stream, whose small waves, murmuring sweet, Broke into silver ripples at their feet, And, whispering nothings to the drowsy flowers, The gentle thing beguiled the moonlight hours: Yet not more fleetly wimpled it away, Till in the east it met the brightening day, Than did the thoughts of those twin hearts that night, Till, like the stream, they too dissolved in light, And, soft as music from an unseen lyre, Holy as sunshine on the hamlet spire, Joyous as spring's first smile o'er valley wide, Moved, look'd, and felt that boy and his young bride.

Years roll'd away—years long in life's brief span— And by the shore there stood a lonely man— The shore of the great ocean—and its foam Dash'd on him unregarded. Like a gnome That loveth not the light, he seem'd to be Concentred in his own dark misery. Onward into the future never more That desolate man will look; his store Of summer sweets, in bleak disorder cast, Lies withering on the desert of the past.— There is a stream whose melancholy tone Finds in his heart an echo to its own; There is a bright eye sunken, cold, and dim, And if its light be quench'd, what sun dares shine on him?